Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, everybody. We’re here to talk about the J’Ouvert celebration. And I want to start by saying that this city is blessed to have a large and strong community of people whose roots are in the Caribbean – hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who contribute greatly to this city. And on Labor Day weekend we have the parade, obviously, one of the biggest events in New York City, each year and the J’Ouvert celebration preceding it.
It’s a very important moment for the Caribbean community and we respect that but we are absolutely committed to ensuring that this be an event where everyone is kept safe.
Last year, as everyone knows, we attempted a series of major changes and a tremendous amount more police presence and additional resources, and yet we did not get the result we sought. Lives were lost and that’s unacceptable to all of us.
So, we’re going to have a very different plan for the J’Ouvert celebration this year. There’s going to be even more police presence . There’s going to be a series of changes. In fact, you’re going to see the same kind of measures that we take on New Year’s Eve to create a much more orderly and controlled situation.
Now, you’re going to hear from a variety of people after me including leaders of the community who led the planning process and played a key role in determining which measures made sense that respected a tradition that goes back generations and recognized the fact that people would be gathering either way but ackbolwedged that we had to increasingly add security measures and change the basic dynamics of the event to make it safer for everyone.
So, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. The folks who you’ll hear from, as I said, I want to thank them all because this was a planning process that was community-based, that took a lot of rethinking, a lot of new thinking. And it was a strong collaborative effort over months and months to figure out the right balance. So, you’ll hear from a number of them in a moment.
I also want to thank some other folks who are with us who have played a crucial role in this process and will play a crucial role on the night and the morning of J’Ouvert.
I first want to thank Eric Cumberbatch, the Executive Director of the Office to Prevent Gun Violence in the Mayor’s Office who has done outstanding work working with the Cure Violence movement which will play a very, very important role in the efforts around J’Ouvert.
From the NYPD, I want to acknowledge the leadership roles in this planning process played out by Chief of Patrol Terry Monahan and the Brooklyn South Commanding Officer Chief Steven Powers. Both of them put a huge amount of time and energy into creating this new plan. I want to thank them for that.
I want to thank the Chair of Community Board 9, Musa Moore, for his good efforts and his support. And of course, I want to thank our hosts here today, the Brooklyn Public Library, for all they do for Brooklyn, and for having us here in their wonderful facility
So, here are the basic changes. I think you know about them already but just to summarize – we’ll be starting the parade, the J’ouvert parade at a later start time, 6:00 am, when it will already begin to be light out.
The parade route will be closed to the public the night before. You will see an increased police presence. There will be hundreds more NYPD officers than last year. And last year, again, was an increased presence compared to the past. There will be more light towers along the route – a 30 percent increase from last year.
We believe these efforts will make a big difference and we also believe that the unity that has been exhibited by all of the stakeholders in seeking this plan and spreading the word to the community that this plan is what everyone believes will work best, that that is going to play a crucial role.
And I mentioned the Cure Violence movement, sometimes called Violence Interrupters, also known as the Crisis Management System – these are community leaders who have done outstanding work, individuals who work block-by-block in communities engaging in particular young people, helping to educate them, and move them away from any path that might lead them to violence or danger.
One of the reasons you’ve seen a substantial decrease in shootings particular in this city has been because of the Cure Violence movement. I want to thank them and comment them for the work they do.
They’re going to play a crucial role around the events of J’Ouvert. And look, the NYPD has approached this process through the prism of neighborhood policing which we see month after month continues to make the city safer – high level of engagement with communities, a lot of communication, a lot of one-on-one work between police officers and members of communities. That is what has also led us to this plan – a lot of engagement between the NYPD and members of the community to determine what will make the most sense.
The vast, vast majority of people who come to J’Ouvert come to celebrate peacefully, to honor their traditions and their culture. And that is what we should focus on but we have know in the past, there have been some bad apples and some people have caused real pain and real damage.
Our message today is that this will not be tolerated. No effort to incite violence will be tolerated. Illegal activity will not be tolerated. The NYPD will be out in force with a zero tolerance attitude towards anything that might endanger other people.
And we believe that it’s important to respect all of the communities that make up this great city. We’re obviously in a time in our nation where there’s a huge debate going on and we’ve said very clearly in this city, we respect people of all backgrounds. We respect all faiths. We respect all cultures.
Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill: Thanks, Mr. Mayor. So, every year thousands of people look forward to this celebration of Caribbean culture and life – J’Ouvert. But there’s also many that fear because of the history of the violence that’s associated with. And at the NYPD we know what the problem is. Historically, it hasn’t been the people that come to legitimately celebrate their heritage, their culture. It’s a real small percentage of the population, you know, out-and-out criminals who senselessly carry out violence against others just for the sake of doing so.
So, the day after last year’s J’Ouvert we immediately stopped working every stakeholder and I think that’s the point a lot – everybody needs to take from this. This isn’t the NYPD or the Mayor’s Office doing this by ourselves. This is – we worked with everybody to come up with this plan.
We worked with Eric’s office. We worked with Jumaane, with Laurie Cumbo, with J’Ouvert International, with the communities. So, this is a plan that we all came up with and I think this is the best way to move forward.
So, we should have a successful, enjoyable, and safe event for everyone this year. The time change for start should help us. In fact all of our combined efforts are geared towards deterring acts of violence. In a minute, Chief of Patrol Terry Monahan will detail many of the specifics as far as the NYPD is concerned.
And I really can’t overstate how important Cure Violence is to what we’re doing into the weeks leading up to J’OUvert and to the night of, the morning of.
I can tell you you’ll see even more police presence. We are putting more people on the detail this year. And there’s a lot that you won’t see also. I want to thank all the residents, the community leaders, the organizers at J’ouvert City International, and the elected officials who we’ve been working so closely with.
